Michael, Colette V.

Dr. Colette V. Michael taught in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Northern Illinois University. She received her M.A. in the History of Sciences and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Michael has published several works on the political and social changes that took place in France during the Enlightenment, especially the prominent part some women played during the French Revolution.

2007 0-7734-5551-5This work questions the position of women in France during the 18th century. The value of anonymous works published during the Enlightenment on the rights of women is noted by several known and appreciated authors in the introduction, and the role of philosophers of the period. For these reasons the author chooses to no longer concentrate on Descartes’s rationality, which claims that all that exists has its justification. Instead, the author’s hypothesis is verifiable, based on the relationships between assumptions and the facts guaranteed by empirical data.